


Make Me

by riteinthefeels



Series: Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Heather attempts to write fight scenes, Without a beta reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riteinthefeels/pseuds/riteinthefeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In twos and threes he took out the remaining warriors until only Thor and Odin were left. Through a thick fog, Loki heard Odin command Thor to attack. Wild eyes swept slowly over the writhing bodies of his foes until they rested upon Odin, regal and silent as always. A crazed hatred filled Loki while he turned to charge the Allfather. As his foot pushed off, he heard the muffled thud of something very heavy and very hard connecting with his knee, felt the crunch of his patella and the snap of his cruciate ligament.</p><p>Loki dropped, all of his weight falling to his broken appendage, and struggled to rise on his good leg. Before he had a chance, Thor tackled him, crushing his shoulders into the ground, his palm forcing Loki’s head to grind against the dirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Me

**Author's Note:**

> Some stories just beg to be written. [Like this one.](http://tyrotheterrible.tumblr.com/post/52355589152/ilvalentinos-okayophelia-loki-loves-the-power)

Three days he sat in the illuminated box, hands and mouth still bound by the runed restraints Thor had brought to his welcoming party.

The first day, Thor had too willingly handed him over to the einherjar and Odin. He had not seen his once-brother again until the sentence was passed.

“You are not the only one in Asgard who wields magic, Loki. You would do well to remember.”

Those final words from his estranged father had all but sealed his fate. As the echo cascaded from the vaulted ceilings of the throne room, Loki had felt an uncomfortable tightening in his chest, chemical alarm gripping him as he stumbled and gasped.

He had been escorted promptly to the cell and thrown inside unceremoniously. The glimpse he caught of Thor’s face as he was dragged away reeked of guilt and anguish.

On the second day, Thor came to visit, eyes searching Loki’s face for some sign of remorse or recognition—anything to let him know his little brother was not completely lost.

Loki had spent the day curled in a ball on the flimsy mattress, shackles chafing his too-thin wrists and his jaw unbearably clammy under the muzzle. He lifted his head as if to say _I will not die so easily, Odinsson_ , then promptly curled tighter, nose to the wall, and waited for Thor to leave.

The afternoon of the third day found him well enough to eat, and the muzzle was removed for half an hour while he sipped a bland broth, swishing it around his tongue to glean what flavor he could. The shackles remained on, whether he was eating, sleeping, or bathing.

Evening fell, and steps sounded through the recesses of the palace corridors. Loki glanced casually at the glass wall, expecting Thor or maybe Odin. He did not expect to see the Warriors Three and Sif accompany his former family, together with a full armed guard of a dozen men.

Surely, they could not think him that dangerous. The burning in his chest had subsided, yet he had not regained full strength since the ordeal with that green monster and the punishment Odin had inflicted on him upon his return.

Two of the guards entered his cell, helping him to his feet and guiding him to stand before the Allfather.

“My son,” Odin began, “the time has come for your punishment to begin.”

A glimmer of confusion crossed Loki’s eyes. The guards took his elbows once again, and the entire procession made its way to the training grounds.

 _So this is it. I’m to be torn apart like a hare in a pack of dogs. They really must fear me to pit seventeen seasoned warriors against me, even in my current state._ He narrowed his eyes, glaring at Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif in turn. Childhood friends he had been with through battle and celebration, debased to an execution squad for the fallen false prince of Asgard.

Thor led the trickster to the center of the ring, removing the shackles and muzzle and leaning in to whisper apology. The thunderer took his place among the circle, opposite his father. Odin nodded, and all seventeen of the warriors assumed combat positions.

His lips parted, hesitation pregnant upon them before he murmured, “Tulipan.”

At once, Loki was possessed of a singular rage, coursing fire through his veins and filling his mouth with venom. His eyes lifted and locked on Fandral’s, and a grin crept up one corner of his lips. A muttered curse, a swish of hands, and Fandral was on his back in the dust, gasping and sputtering.

He turned to see an einherji charging him and twisted gracefully at the hips, a long dagger forming in his outstretched hand just as his opponent reached it. The man promptly lurched away, parched ground greedily soaking up blood that dripped from a deep wound below his ribs.

Two more guards rushed Loki and he dipped low as the first approached him, sliding the man across his back with ease to meet the pike of the opposite guard, then whirling from under the slumping figure to light the other’s nerves afire with an hallucinogenic touch.

The trickster fought like a mindless instrument, only vaguely aware of his surroundings. His hands and feet moved with the deftness his fellow warriors were used to, but his eyes were eerily blank like those of a mad dog.

In twos and threes he took out the remaining warriors until only Thor and Odin were left. Through a thick fog, Loki heard Odin command Thor to attack. Wild eyes swept slowly over the writhing bodies of his foes until they rested upon Odin, regal and silent as always. A crazed hatred filled Loki while he turned to charge the Allfather. As his foot pushed off, he heard the muffled thud of something very heavy and very hard connecting with his knee, felt the crunch of his patella and the snap of his cruciate ligament.

Loki dropped, all of his weight falling to his broken appendage, and struggled to rise on his good leg. Before he had a chance, Thor tackled him, crushing his shoulders into the ground, his palm forcing Loki’s head to grind against the dirt.

He leaned to Loki’s ear as the trickster struggled to get free, blonde strands sweeping Loki’s cheek, and whispered, “Krysantemum.”

Loki went still. He panted heavily into the dirt, and Thor cautiously rose, giving the shattered knee a wide berth.

“You disobey me, still,” Odin began.

“There was no need for me to fight him,” Thor retorted. “I thought him dead until a week ago, and since we learned of his whereabouts I have done nothing but fight him. Your trick worked, Father. Sixteen seasoned warriors and not a scratch on him until Mjolnir found her mark.”

Odin stared with his one persecuting eye, then turned and walked back to the palace. Healers came and took away the battered warriors, but Thor insisted on tending to Loki himself.

He picked up the younger man, wiping the spit and dirt from his cheek while he cradled him against his chest like a child and brought him to their mother’s handmaiden, Gna. Loki’s eyes remained trained to the ground, hiding from the humiliation his once-brother would put him through. As he tried to process the events of the evening, numbness stole through his mind. He remembered fighting in the ring, as if he had dreamed it, not just partaken in it minutes before.

Bits and pieces of the brawl slipped through his consciousness as Gna worked on his knee, pulsing healing energy into it. He winced when the bone fragments slipped back into place. Confusion crept in, threading slivers of self-doubt through his thoughts; it wasn’t like him to lose time like that. He must still be suffering exhaustion from his time spent in the hands of the Other.

Thor stayed at the door, one hand against the frame as if letting go of it would seal the severance between the brothers. He could find no words to mend his transgressions, no thought to cleanse his sins besides _I’m sorry_ over and over. When the handmaiden had finished her work, Loki could walk stiffly, and Thor led him back down to his cell.

“I see Odin still has you doing his bidding like a chained dog, dear brother,” Loki hissed as he shuffled along the corridors.

“I did not bring you back here to fight, Loki,” Thor replied. “How was I to know how Father would treat your behavior on Midgard?”

“And yet, we do fight. It is as if I never fell. The dance continues, unwilling partners though we may be.”

Thor stopped and studied his brother’s face. Weariness masked over a still-burning hatred, and a glint of bewildered fear shone in Loki’s eyes. Thor left Loki in his cell, desperation stealing half-truths into his thoughts: that he would make it right, that they could go back to the way they were. He would have settled for “goodnight,” but his voice failed him.

~*~

The next day, Loki was paraded to the ring just after lunch. The fetters were foregone, but he did not believe Odin had regained trust in him so quickly.  This time, Thor dismissed the two guards and it was only the brothers, facing off in an awkward parody of bygone days.

Loki was fully present in the fray this time, dodging and weaving around his brother with surreal grace. He ducked behind Thor as the hammer swung a wide arc, wrapping sinewy arms around Thor’s waist, a ruse of restraint they both knew the blonde could break.

Loki’s body pressed against Thor’s back as he breathed into his ear, “What did they promise you, brother?”

The trickster spun away again, just out of reach, when Thor turned with a gruff, “I do not know of what you speak.”

“To abandon me again,” Loki’s voice oozed through clenched teeth as he fired a spell. “Or was it only too easy after you saw what I’ve become?”

Thor blocked with his hammer, sending the ball of crackling energy ricocheting.

“Did they even offer you anything? Or have you finally given me up as lost?” the god taunted, diving out of the rebound’s way.

Thor gritted his teeth, launching Mjolnir listlessly at his brother.

“This is so much more fun when your heart is in it, _brother_ ,” Loki jeered as he ducked the hammer and hurled himself at Thor’s legs in a crouch, momentum carrying them into the dust, a tangle of limbs and sweat and deceit.

Thor lay in the arid dirt of the ring, yielding as Loki scrambled up his body, straddling his waist and pinning his arms to the ground.

“You win, Loki. Let me up. I do not wish to play these games with you.”

Ire lit the trickster’s eyes as he hovered over Thor, transmogrifying his face into a grotesque farce of the usually collected demeanor.

“Then whose games will you play, Thor? For you must play someone’s. That is the secret to life, what those eternal nights in the abyss revealed to me. None of us can escape it, though we be gods or anything else.”

Thor threw Loki, sprawling the pale deceiver feet away where he feigned injury, body limp and propped lasciviously against the fence. The thunderer rose slowly, eyes locked on Loki’s form as he stalked toward him and offered a hand.

“What happened to you, out there? You are still my brother, and yet, you are not. How can I fix this?”

“Fix it?” Loki sneered, ignoring the hand. “There is nothing to fix, Thor, for I am not broken. Merely enlightened. And like all genius, the masses see my higher purpose as a threat, misconstruing liberation when presented to them.”

“Loki, you speak in circles. I fear you are more damaged than I initially thought.”

An eye roll and a sigh weighted with unspoken contempt met Thor’s concern, and the blonde grabbed his brother’s arm and hoisted him to his feet.

~*~

They sparred every morning, Thor ever careful to hold back while Loki came up with increasingly new and creative ways to best the thunder god. He even became a little cocky, being caught off guard one day when Thor threw the hammer in earnest. The trickster had been training for a month, gaining strength every day, and Thor no longer felt it necessary to pretend he opposed a weaker foe.

Mjolnir dealt a glancing blow to Loki’s side, cracking a rib and sending him sputtering into the dust. Rain began to fall, splashing drops of mud to tarnish the billowy cotton that replaced his normal green and gold regalia. He pressed a hand to his side, temporarily setting the bone before spinning to hurl an array of dirks at the blonde.

“Thor,” he gasped, “You haven’t been playing fair with me.”

At this, he rushed his once-brother, but Thor sidestepped out of the charge, causing Loki to double back in the rapidly forming mud. The slighter man, wiry and lean from ages in the abyss, leapt onto Thor’s back, his knees squeezing the thunderer’s sides. He jerked Thor’s head back, fingers woven tightly through the golden braids just as Odin and a small troop of einherjar approached.

The hammer-hurler fell to his knees, water pooling around his legs, his spine arced back unnaturally. Loki conjured a dagger at the bronze throat and glanced up at the added company. He leaned to his brother’s ear, cool breath howling whispers past Thor’s head amid the echoing din of the storm.

“Shall I slit your throat like one of the mindless cattle sacrificed to your father? He comes now, just in time to accept his tribute.” Loki jerked on the locks in his grasp.

The einherjar started forward into the ring, but Thor held them off with a wave.

“It’s good to see such confidence in you, brother,” he choked out. “Your strength has peaked since our return.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Odinsson!” Loki rasped, and the clouds boomed a startling cacophony in reply.

Lightning hissed down from the looming heavens, connecting with Mjolnir where Thor held her half-buried in the mud. It raced through Thor’s body, throwing Loki to his back in the muck with the force of a dozen trained warriors. Thor rose over the writhing figure, electricity crackling from his skin like luminescent flagellae.

“Had you meant to kill me, Loki, you should not have hesitated.”

He leaned down, resting his hammer on his brother’s chest.

Loki coughed, “Had I meant to kill you, I would have.”

Thor straightened, ignoring the trickster’s groans and protests, and strode to the fence. Odin stood statuesque just outside of it, and Thor leaned in to address his father.

“I believe he is ready, father. Shall we arrange for the challenge tonight?”

“It will be tomorrow morning. Send him to his cell to rest for the remainder of the day.”

The rain slackened to a drizzle. The Allfather turned back to the palace and Loki was escorted to prison.

~*~

The trickster was reading when Frigga brought his dinner that night. She had brought his dinner for the past few weeks, and they both looked forward to the hour they spent together while he ate. Occasionally, he would look up to catch her staring at him in the most forlorn manner, as if the answer to her failed parenting lay etched somewhere in the scar tissue across his nose, or perhaps in the faded laugh lines around his mouth.

She would offer a smile, her warmth driving back the desolation that threatened to swallow him into another abyss. She informed him of current events and filled him in on the gossip from the past year.

They sat opposite a rough wooden table and shared bread and wine as they talked.

“I wish you had seen me today, Mother,” Loki began. “You would have been proud at the gains I have made since my return.”

She reached across and patted his hand. “I am proud, Loki, but not of that. Your progress in reconciling with your father and brother has been remarkable since your return.”

He winced inwardly, remembering all too clearly how that same “father” and “brother” had thrown him from the bridge a little over a year prior.

“Tomorrow, I wish you would come and watch me spar with Thor, all the same.”

“Oh, I will, but you won’t be sparring with Thor tomorrow,” she replied, then covered her mouth when she realized her folly.

He glared at her expectantly, and she sighed, her fingers going up to smooth back a stray strand of hair.

“Loki, I cannot speak to you about this. You know that. Everything will be revealed to you in time.”

He stared down at his glass, swirling the wine around in it before answering. “I think I may retire early tonight, Mother. I feel I will need all my strength for whatever… surprise awaits me in the morning.”

Frigga rose, leaning to kiss his forehead. “Sleep well, darling,” she murmured, knocking on the glass door to be let out.

Loki watched her leave, then downed the rest of his wine and lay on the puritanical bed. He stretched on his belly and imagined all manner of scenarios for the morrow: another troop of guards, Sif and the Warriors Three, Amora. Perhaps the mortal woman had found a way to repair the bridge to Midgard, and the Avengers had come to dole punishment. He shuddered at the thought of facing the green behemoth again.

 _No,_ he decided, _they likely merely wish to make a spectacle of Thor’s prowess over his little brother. Another reminder that he is the favored—the only son._

He grabbed a book, perusing its pages by the light of a conjured glowing ball until he succumbed to sleep.

~*~

The day started like any other. He was allowed a sparse meal before the guards pulled him from his cell and marched him out to the yard. Instead of turning toward the training grounds, however, they climbed the hill to the arena. As Loki walked through the passages under the seats, the restless stomping and chattering of a large crowd echoed from above him.

Thor met him by the gate, padding him in rudimentary leather and handing him a crude, if not sharp, blade. He stood with hands resting on Loki’s shoulders, admiring the limber frame that housed his brother. His head tilted to the side and a tear threatened to fall from his eye, then he pulled the other man into a crushing embrace.

Minutes passed, and Loki thought he would never escape Thor’s grip. Finally, the thunderer slackened his arms, clasping Loki’s neck in an ancient gesture of camaraderie solely theirs. He smiled, dropping his hand to his side as the gate slid up. Loki hesitantly stole into the blinding light of the arena floor and glanced across the scorching sands. The gate opposite his rose slowly, and a trio of hogs emerged, eyes red with rage, foam dripping from their bristled jaws and keen tusks.

Loki searched the stands for familiar faces, finding Odin and his mother in a gaudily painted box to the right. The hogs had scented him and advanced rapidly. He half-turned to glimpse Thor’s face, heard the word whispered like the juiciest of secrets—“Tulipan.”

Bloodlust overtook him, but not the blinding, reckless ire of a month ago. This was a controlled, calculating force slithering through his spinal cord and curling around his reptilian brain like a constricting serpent. He turned back to the hogs, incapacitating the closest with a sleeping spell before the other two closed in on him. Their earthy stench filled his nostrils as he jumped quickly to the side, avoiding the brush of broken tusks.

The larger animal turned on its rear hooves, crowding Loki against the wall of the arena. Its dribbling maw opened, ready to close on the man’s arm, but instead found the nose of the other porcine as the trickster teleported it in his place. One long tusk of the transported boar pierced through the attacker’s soft palette, effectively driving through the brain of the unfortunate creature. Loki backed away, sword in hand, as the hog thrashed about and finally succeeded in dislodging itself from the sagging weight of the corpse.

The pig closed the gap in a ragged stumble, the pain of the other swine’s bite blinding it. Its erratic flailing made it an easy target for Loki, who snuck to the side of the animal, plunging his blade into its heart and retreating. The hog convulsed, crashing to the ground and throwing bloodied sand in the macabre, misshapen equivalent of a snow angel before it expired.

 The trickster turned, catching his breath just in time to see the third boar struggling to its feet. It groggily shook its head, scanning the arena until it saw Loki. It never got the chance to charge; a powerful frost spell enveloped it in ice before it could get its footing.

Loki strutted to the hog with his sword in its chest amid a mixed cadence of cheers and jeers. He lifted the sword high above his head, shrieking his battle cry to the crowd, adrenaline still pulsing through him.

The sharp screech of the gate belied the entrance of a pair of bilgesnipe, snapping and quarreling with each other as they set foot on the sands. One green and one brown, their dull scales speckled with mud and offal, they scurried across the arena, forked tongues flicking at intervals.

The beasts were huge, each easily the size of three horses, but slow and stupid. As long as Loki could avoid their crushing jaws, they would be a piece of cake. He circled around them, keeping his back against the wall as he crouched low, waving the sword in front of himself.

He surrounded the animals with clones, and each one they clicked their jaws on dissipated into ether. While they were busy with the mirage, Loki crept up behind the green one, a long, conjured whip at hand. He cracked it deftly, wrapping the end around one of the beast’s branching antlers, and climbed up to its back, swaying with each movement of its head.

The trickster straddled the creature’s neck and loosed the whip. The clones had all disappeared, and the bilgesnipes were busily sniffing and investigating the ground for the sorcerer. He grabbed onto a prong of each antler, wrenching the animal’s head this way and that with enough force to break its neck. It collapsed in a cloud of dust, its red reptilian eye rolled back in the socket.

The brown bilgesnipe caught sight of Loki jumping free of its downed partner and lunged, barbed teeth coming down on the flat of the blade. It wrenched the weapon from Loki’s grasp, spitting it yards away and erupting with a rasping roar. The god took the chance to tether the whip around the base of an antler, pulling hard and jerking the beast’s head to the ground with a thud.

Loki jumped on the animal’s nose, conjuring knives in each hand and plunging them into the creature’s eyes, the points scraping against each other inside its skull. He withdrew, wiping the blades on his ragged leather pants as the animal collapsed.

Once again, he raised the blades above his head, shaking them at the crowd as he turned in a circle amidst the hurrahs and cheered back. When he faced the Allfather, he screamed, “What now, huh?”

Odin nodded his head slowly in response, and the gate opened a third time. Lumbering through the portal, so large it barely squeezed into the arena, was a frost beast. It appeared someone had gone to Jotunheim just for this occasion to capture one of the grotesque creatures. Its breathing labored in the considerably hotter climate of Asgard. Bright red eyes glowed beneath a bony cerulean brow as its gaze swept the stands.

It stood on powerful hind feet, towering over the top of the wall. Slowly, the cheering Asgardians began to realize the threat looming before them, and fled their seats in terror. Screams of the trampled mixed with the uproar of the stampede, and for a moment, it seemed the creature would rampage through the countryside unabated.

With the beast’s attention redirected, Loki bolted across the sands. He grabbed the creature’s tail as it veered toward him, knives gouged through the tough, warty skin. Immediately, the frost beast dropped down to all fours, turning away from the petrified mob. It pawed futilely at its tail, razor claws swinging just out of reach. Loki withdrew a knife to implant it further up, using the hilt as a grip to hoist himself higher.

The animal bellowed with each stab, the trickster climbing along its broad back one foot at a time. Twenty fresh wounds drained an otherworldly azure blood, coating Loki’s armor in slickness. The beast reared back again, attempting to reach across its barrel chest to dislodge the nuisance.

The coating on Loki’s hands proved too much, and he was down. The knives remained lodged in the frost beast’s shoulder, driving it to scrape against the arena wall. The god rolled away as the animal tore in a frenzy across the sands. The claws of the beast had easily torn through his leg armor, leaving a wide gash across his thigh.

The frightened citizens had stopped to watch once the creature was diverted away from the stands. A hush hung over the building, everyone holding their breath lest they miss some decree of import. The sword was buried somewhere in the dust, the daggers remained in the animal’s hide, and a whip would only do so much on its own against such a formidable being.

As the animal circled back around to its opponent, Loki curled the whip around the bony ornament protruding from its jaw. The beast flung its head, snapping Loki’s body around in front of its face. The trickster grabbed for the facial protrusion, sand covering his palms as he scrambled to hold his grip. Maddened by an enemy taunting it at such close range, the creature propelled itself towards the wall, clamoring its indignity to the skies.

Loki’s eyes flashed wildly; he pulled himself onto the spike, locking his knees around it, and leaned forward to press both hands against its icy cheek, fetid breath washing over him in waves as it roared and tossed its head. The trickster pumped magic though the animal, infusing its blood vessels with tendrils of dormant flame. Yards from the wall, the spell ignited, the frost beast bursting from the inside as if it had swallowed a Molotov cocktail.

Thrown against the wall near the gate, the trickster slumped, the crowd’s boisterous adulation buzzing through the fog. His eyes focused and he pulled himself up with a growl, felt Thor’s fist slam into the gate at his side and the air fill with the electric pulse of a fuming thunder god.

The sky quickly darkened, rain pouring in sheets. Thor hoisted the gate with one hand, fury preceding him as he stamped into the arena. He stalked toward Loki, eyes spitting static. _So, the beasts have softened me up before the golden child puts an end to me_.

Loki willed his arms to lash out, his legs to move, but found his own appendages disobeyed him. The coiled force at the base of his skull squeezed tighter, radiating pain through his body and forcing him to his knees. He could neither budge nor speak against the thunderer. _Brother, I know I deserve this, but you’ve ever shown pity before._

Thor turned as he stood by his brother, addressing the sheltered box where Odin sat.

“Father!” he screamed. “Loki is injured! I would stand with him against this final challenge!” More of a demand than a request, Thor brooked no dispute, instead extending a hand to his brother.

Warily, Loki accepted, and Thor heaved him up to stand beside him. Lightning danced through the clouds, drawing the crowd’s attention. A gargantuan armored face emerged from the haze, more forcing its way through the vapor than parting it. Enormous stiletto teeth gnashed as its serpentine body undulated down towards the arena, nebulous strands dragging from flattened appendages.

With a start, Loki recognized the Chitauri leviathan and wondered at the power that enticed it to Asgard. A power once his, to command the alien whales; a power he would have again, one way or another.

Thor grabbed the trickster’s waist, Mjolnir spinning in his opposite hand, and propelled them both into the sky to meet the creature. They landed just behind its head, and Loki grabbed onto a metal spike jutting from its back.

“Thor!” he howled over the wind, “This is my fight!” _I have to do this alone, have to prove my worth, display my mastery over this beast._

Thor’s brow furrowed, but he seemed to understand as he clasped Loki’s hand once more and jumped from the side of the careening animal. The rain lessened to mist; the leviathan descended in wide circles toward the arena floor.

Gungnir materialized in Loki’s grip, but before he could thrust it into the beast, he realized how heavy the armor covering its soft body was. Thick metal plates overlapped each other in an impenetrable pattern—prying them loose would take much more time than he could spare. If the creature reached the arena floor, hundreds of spectators would die.

A last volatile flash of lightning ripped through the sky, attracted by the metal rod in Loki’s fingers. It flowed through him, washing over in invigorating waves, the coiled force lapping greedily at the energy and pushing it back out through the trickster’s skin. It permeated the leviathan’s armor, pulsing along its body like a gigantic lightning rod, metal plates twisting in upon themselves with an ear-splitting screech.

The plate at Loki’s feet hung on just barely, flapping in the vortex surrounding the creature. Looking down the length of its back, he spied many others in similar condition. He summoned an army of clones, each with its own spear. Glancing over the side, he noted that the arena floor was less than a hundred feet below.

He flipped the spear, pulling back his arm and driving the head as deep into the exposed skin as he could. Each clone mimicked his motions, and the creature crashed to the sands, its swan song reverberating the wooden arena benches.

Loki vaulted from the back of his conquest, panting hard and roaring his dominion to the stands. The crowd exploded in bacchanalian revelry.

Thor approached from his position on the wall, taking Gungnir from his brother’s grasp and clapping an arm around his shoulders.

He leaned in close to Loki’s cheek, whispering, “Krysantemum.”

“Brother,” Loki confided, still riding the prevailing high, “I’m still not entirely sure of the magnitude of Odin’s spell, but I could get used to it.”

Thor smiled, but his eyes remained troubled as he wondered to what depths Asgard had sunk that would allow its prince to be denatured to a dog of war.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel is at [Break Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/908185).


End file.
